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<h1 class="gmail-single_title">The war is lost, so why is Netanyahu still killing civilians in Rafah?</h1>
<div class="gmail-article-author"><h3>By <a href="https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012"> Ramzy Baroud </a></h3></div>
<p class="gmail-single_date">Tuesday 4-June-2024 - <font size="1"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/the-war-is-lost-so-why-is-netanyahu-still-killing-civilians-in-rafah/">https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/the-war-is-lost-so-why-is-netanyahu-still-killing-civilians-in-rafah/</a></font></p>
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<p>Just hours after Israel carried out a gruesome massacre of displaced
Palestinians in the Tel Al-Sultan area west of Rafah in the Gaza Strip
on 26 May, it carried out yet another massacre in the Al-Mawasi area.
The first is now known as the “Tents Massacre”. It took place shortly
after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finally issued a stern
demand that, “Israel must immediately halt its military offensive and
any other action in Rafah which may inflict on the Palestinian group in
Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part.”</p>
<p>The killing of 50 Palestinians in their own displacement tents was
the answer given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his
extremist government to the ICJ and the rest of the international
community. The successive Israeli massacres in Rafah demonstrate the
degree of intransigence of Israel’s genocidal regime.</p>
<p>Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, who could both
be on the official “wanted” list of the International Criminal Court
(ICC) within weeks, could easily have chosen a different path, even for
mere political maneuvering. They could, for example, have delayed their
Rafah operation or changed strategies, just to avoid further ICJ rulings
on the matter.</p>
<p>Instead, they went for the most arrogant and cowardly of choices: killing civilians.</p>
<p>Their 2000lb bunker-busting bombs dismembered and beheaded children
as they lay beside their mothers in makeshift camps that have no water,
no electricity and no food. While the Israeli army offered the world a
clearly concocted version of what happened, blaming “militants” and
such, Netanyahu’s office described the attack as a mistake.</p>
<p>Both versions, of course, were lies. The Israeli army possesses some
of the most advanced surveillance technology in the world, thanks to US
generosity and continued support. It could easily have distinguished
between a Palestinian Resistance operational area and a refugee camp
filled with children and women.</p>
<p>If the attack was indeed a mistake, what explains the other massacres
that followed, also in Rafah and in nearby Mawasi, which killed and
maimed scores of refugees? And what is the logic behind the killing and
wounding of nearly 130,000 Palestinians since the start of the war on 7
October, the majority of whom were women and children?</p>
<p>The Tents Massacre was neither a mistake, nor can it be blamed on
imaginary militants operating from inside displaced refugees’ tents.
Nevertheless, Netanyahu did have his own logic. For a start, he wanted
to send a direct message to let the ICJ know that Israel is not
perturbed by its direct order to end the Rafah operation. The intended
audience of this message was not necessarily the ICJ judges, but the
international community, which remains, despite its solidarity rhetoric,
ineffectual in influencing the duration, direction or nature of the
Israeli war.</p>
<p>Netanyahu also wanted to score cheap political points against his
rivals in his War Cabinet, by presenting himself as the bold Israeli
leader who is standing up to the whole world. He has stated over and
over again that “[the Jewish people] will stand alone.”</p>
<p>The Israeli leader must also have been informed that more Israeli
soldiers had been captured by the Palestinian Resistance. The latter’s
statement about this on 25 May was issued just one day before Netanyahu
attacked Rafah. From a military point of view, the capturing of more
soldiers who were sent to Gaza supposedly to free other Israeli captives
should have been a “game over” moment.</p>
<p>The Gaza Resistance hasn’t released any more information since the
initial, brief statement by Al-Qassam military spokesman, Abu Obeida.
Hamas is known for releasing information to the public when it is
strategically most opportune to do so, as was the case in its
announcement that it is holding Israeli Colonel Asaf Hamami, who Israel
declared to be dead last December.</p>
<p>Netanyahu and his army are trying desperately to pre-empt the angry
reaction in Israeli society about the capture of soldiers by keeping the
news focused on Rafah.</p>
<p>He knows that such massacres widen his circle of support among his extreme far-right constituency.</p>
<p>Moreover, the timing of the massacre was also a message to the US,
the mediators (Egypt and Qatar), Hamas and even members of the War
Cabinet who are keen on ending the war through a truce agreement. Media
reports have spoken about a potential breakthrough in talks, starting in
Paris before moving to Doha, which showed some willingness on the part
of Israel to link the release of prisoners to a permanent truce.</p>
<p>Such an agreement would be considered a defeat from Netanyahu’s point
of view, and would certainly usher in the end of his political career.
Hence, he simply lashed out against the refugees of Rafah with the hope
of disrupting any potential deal in Doha.</p>
<p>It was for the same reason that his troops opened fire at Egyptian
soldiers at the Rafah Crossing, killing one, possibly two, and wounding
more. Egypt has been an important mediator in the truce talks. Attacking
the mediator is not only humiliating for the Egyptian government, but
for the army and Egyptian people as well.</p>
<p>Although Netanyahu has no strategy for the war itself, he has a
strategy for prolonging his own political survival. It is predicated on
mixing the political cards, ensuring chaos and carrying out constant
massacres against civilians, all safe in the knowledge that Washington
will always remain on his side no matter what. The Israeli leader is
just buying time, though. Israel’s top generals and military experts and
analysts know that the war has been lost and that prolonging it will
not, in any way, alter its predictable outcomes.</p>
<p><em>-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains
Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli
Prisons’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East
Center (AMEC).</em></p>
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